


Different Now

by AgentMaryMargaretSkitz, IncendiaGlacies



Series: Legends of S.H.I.E.L.D [7]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D AU, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 10:07:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15192482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentMaryMargaretSkitz/pseuds/AgentMaryMargaretSkitz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncendiaGlacies/pseuds/IncendiaGlacies
Summary: Gideon contemplates what it means to have died and come back to life, all she knows is she feels different somehow.Direct companion piece to Freefall. Missing scenes.





	Different Now

**Author's Note:**

> ...I was supposed to have this up three months ago, I finally got inspired, so enjoy!

Today had been one of those hell days. The type of day that made Gideon ever regret taking on a leadership role. Sometimes she thought Rip would have been better suited for it all. He mentored her, taught her everything she knew. If Calvert had never happened, Rip would have been in charge of this team. And today, selfishly, Gideon wished he had been. Rip would have known the right call to make.

 “Agent Rider, I’m sorry, but if you have infected cargo, you need to dump it.”

Gideon stared at the speakerphone; surely, she was hallucinating. Surely, SHIELD wasn’t suggesting she just dump Lily out in the middle of the ocean.

“Excuse me?” she said testily. Rip shot her a look to tell her to calm down. She gestured that Agent Lane on the other end of the line was clearly insane. That made his lips twitch a bit.

“I’m sorry, these orders come from the top,” Agent Lane sounded anything but sorry.

Gideon said nothing.

“Rider? Do you copy?” More silence on Gideon’s end. “Rider, do you copy?”

Gideon bit her lip. “Sorry…can’t hear you…we seem to be…experiencing turbulence…Rip’s a terrible flier…bad connection!” Gideon said, imitating static between words with her mouth.

“Rider, don’t even think about-”

“Oops, sorry. Line must have dropped,” Gideon replied sweetly as she pressed the off button. She looked up to find Rip staring at her with crossed arms and a raised eyebrow. “What? You can’t tell me you actually think that what they were saying is the correct course of action!”

“Bad flier?” Rip demanded. “I thought I taught you to make your lies believable.” He shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips so Gideon knew he wasn’t too mad.

“It’s for Lily, Rip!” Gideon called as he walked away. “Think of the children!”

In the end, it didn’t matter anyway. They almost lost Lily anyways.

* * *

 

The young woman – she was just a kid, as Rip had said – she jumped out of the plane because she thought it would have been better for the team. Perhaps Gideon should have looked into less altruistic people when picking out her team members. Thank goodness, Agent Heywood had gotten her back, but it didn’t change the amount of trouble they were in.

“My office. Now,” she barked at the two shuddering cold and wet figures. Gideon was glad she chose to wear her heels for this, that extra inch really did help with the boss mentality she needed. “Close the door, Agent Heywood,” Gideon ordered as they entered the office.

“Ma’am, I know what I did was-”

“Stupid!” Gideon yelled, cutting Lily off. “What you did was stupid, completely and utterly stupid. Idiotic. It was – it was-” she floundered, trying to think of a better word, some insult she might have used on Rip in the past but her mind was drawing blank. “Stupid!” she finished, breathing heavily.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lily looked at the ground.

Gideon sighed deeply and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t get me wrong, Lilian, I am very happy you’re safe and all right, but don’t you ever do that again. You scared the life out of Doctor Palmer and the rest of us.”

“I know.”

“As leader of this team, it is my responsibility to look after all of you,” she turned to Nate as well so he knew he was encompassed in this and also in trouble. “Which means you can’t just jump of a plane if you think it’s going to save us! If anyone is jumping off a plane, it’s going to be me. I mean, with a parachute attached. I actually have this thing about heights and Rip won’t really let me – but that’s not the point!” Gideon stopped her rambling. “My point is – it’s that-” She resisted the urge to pull at her hair.

“Don’t do anything stupid at the risk of my own life?” Lily offered quietly.

“Yes,” Gideon nodded sharply. It was certainly better than the repeated lecture she was about to say of ‘don’t jump out of planes’ but it was perfectly sound advice as far as Gideon was concerned. She turned to Nate next, “And don’t take action unless you clear it with me first.”

“Ma’am, I had to save Doctor Stein. We couldn’t just let her die.”

“And we wouldn’t have,” Gideon said coldly. “That was not your decision to make on your own.”

“I don’t regret it.”

“I know you don’t. But what would you have done if you failed? I would have had to explain why two of _my_ agents jumped out of a plane and plummeted to their deaths.”

“I wouldn’t have-”

“Don’t ever say that! These are our lives on the line – innocent peoples’ lives,” Gideon said heatedly, “You do not make rash judgements like that! Either of you.” It had taken a while, still took a while, but Rip had to explain that part of the job a million times to her. “If you two die, fine, we grieve, but if someone else died of your recklessness, you wouldn’t be able to live with yourselves.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they both responded despondently, suitably chastised for their behavior.

“Good. Now you’re both grounded.”

“Ma’am, we’re adults, you can’t-”

“Grounded,” Gideon narrowed her eyes at them. “In case you forgot, fishing you out of the ocean and dealing with diplomatic powers that be and talking back to HQ was all a lot of effort. So yes, you are grounded until I say otherwise. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good. Now you may vacate my office.” Gideon shooed them out and sat in her seat, breathing deeply. She pressed a hand over her heart, running her fingers over the scarred tissue. Lily was alive, that was all that mattered.

* * *

 

“Knock, knock,” Rip called gently as he tapped his knuckles against her door. Gideon waved him inside. “I just finished briefing Lily.”

“How is she?” Gideon asked, sifting through papers.

“Fine, brave. She’s stronger than we give her credit for. A lot like you.”

Gideon looked up and smiled softly. “Keep an eye on her for me? She just survived a near-death experience, there’s a good chance she’s still in shock.”

“She wanted to tell her father first,” Rip said quietly.

Gideon looked up and gave him a sharp look. “We aren’t having this discussion. Lily’s relationship with her father is not the same as mine, so don’t make it like that. I did what I thought was best. Save him the heartbreak.”

Rip nodded and eyed the papers on her desk. “Is that her medical report?”

“Actually it’s mine. The bloodwork Lily did came back.”

“And?”

“And…I apparently have high iron. Do you think that’s enough of a reason to have people start calling me Iron Maiden?” she asked playfully, deflecting from his real question.

“Hardly.”

“You’re no fun,” Gideon pouted. Rip hummed quietly, crossing his arms and leaned against the wall as he waited. Finally, she sighed. “My doctors never ordered any tests.”

Rip nodded, he knew that already. She knew he knew that.

“I did,” Gideon admitted, barely above a whisper. She stared at the papers in front of her, the numbers blurring together and swimming in her head. “Rip, these papers, these numbers, they say I’m fine. That I’m _normal._ ” Her voice broke as she turned to him, “But I don’t feel normal. I feel wrong. Like I’m crawling under my skin one second from bursting out. I – I feel different, somehow.”

Lightly, Rip closed the door shut behind him and turned back to her. “Take off your shirt.”

“Well I suppose that’s one way to get me naked. This is probably why you’re single,” Gideon quipped, a smirk playing on her lips. “I’m not some stripper you know – except for that one mission – I need a little wooing.”

“Gideon-”

“Do you remember the last time I got half naked in front of you?”

“Gid-”

“Because I happen to remember it took you a good ten minutes just to unhook my bra!”

“For the hundredth time -”

“You were nervous and intimidated, completely understandable.”

“I wasn’t nervous, we were undercover. It was your first mission, you were young and inexperienced, and I was your supervisor. I was trying to respect your boundaries!”

“Undercover as my husband,” Gideon bantered along, “What happened to operatives always committing and going all the way?”

Rip gave her a warning look. “Gideon.”

“Yes?”

“Are you done deflecting?” he asked sternly. He took a step forward to her. “Unbutton your blouse.”

“This feels more of a third date sort of thing,” Gideon muttered as she undid the top two buttons. "I can't believe you want to feel me up."

Rip chose not to comment on her distracted thoughts. With a single look, he asked for permission and placed a hand over her scar, running his finger along it. He locked eyes with her.

“Whether it was ten seconds, thirty seconds, forty, however long it was,” he said seriously, knowing it was so much longer than she knew of, “you died, Gideon.”

“I know. I was there.”

“Something like that changes you, completely,” he whispered. “After Calvert, well, you know how it was.”

“I know.” She ran her hands over his arms, trying to bring him back to the present. Rip gave her a small smile.

“You can’t expect to feel the same, Gideon. It took me so long just to…”

“I know,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against his.

Rip cleared his throat and stepped back. “The point is, you changed, you can never go back to who you were. So you might as well embrace it.”

“And what if I don’t know who I am anymore?” she asked fearfully.

Rip took her hand in his and squeezed it. “Then I’ll be right here helping you figure it out.”

“You always are.”

* * *

 

“Agent Rider.”

“Agent Lane.” Gideon glared at the man in front of her. It was a good thing she was wearing sunglasses so he couldn’t see her eyes. No doubt, Rip still knew as he flanked her side though.

“Turbulence? Seriously?” he asked her incredulously. “Was that the best you could do?”

“I was short on time and really the weather over the ocean gets so unpredictable,” Gideon shrugged innocently.

“Agent, you know our conversations aren’t private, don’t you?”

“I’m Level Eight, I assure you, I’m aware of protocol.”

“And yet you can’t seem to follow a basic order. Listen, I don’t know what happened in New York, but it doesn’t make you above the rest of us. Doesn’t mean you can disobey a direct order from HQ. I wouldn’t be surprised if Waller takes away your little side operation you’ve got here with your dream team if you keep pulling stunts like that.”

Gideon smirked, and pulled off her sunglasses, leaning in to whisper, “I’d like to see them try.” Her eyes flashed at him as she turned on her heel without another word to Agent Lane.

“That was hardly the usual good girl Gideon I used to know,” Rip teased as he followed her, a smile on his lips.

“Good girl?” Gideon scoffed. “I’m a badass and you know it!”

“Yes you’re a five foot three badass,” Rip nodded seriously. He easily blocked her blow and grabbed her arm, twisting her so her back hit his front.

“Okay, I yield!”

Rip smiled and loosened his grip on her, allowing her to turn and face him. “It was different, new.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

“Good, definitely good,” he said huskily.

“Good, because this is me now.” She patted his shirt and smiled. “I’m different, SHIELD is just going to have to deal with it.”

**Author's Note:**

> We will hopefully have more in this series soon. Kudos/comments?


End file.
